Having Griffith Park named a historic cultural landmark has extremely important benefits beyond the designation itself which creates opportunities for additional funding for maintenance and care of the park, and protection and acknowledgement of the special place this park has in Los Angeles’s colorful history. MacArthur Park is already a historic landmark; doesn’t Griffith Park — ALL of Griffith Park — deserve to be?

That said, this application is much bigger than just the designation. The bottom line is that Griffith Park is the front line in the struggle to keep our green space in Los Angeles away from developers and special interest groups. Sadly, Councilmember Tom LaBonge is fighting this application against the wishes of the Griffith Family, his constituents and the vast majority of Angelenos for exactly this reason — if all of Griffith Park becomes a historic cultural landmark, then every special interest project must go through a very public process for approval. No more backroom deals!

The item copied below is a great letter from the GGPNC outlining some of the sneaky ways politicos are trying to derail this application (very important!) and explaining exactly what action steps each of us needs to take to successfully support the Griffith Park application.

I hope everyone can take a few minutes out of their busy days to help support this pivotal application…

Instructions on how to make your voice heard are behind the jump thanks to the Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council.

From: Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council

YOUR CHANCE TO BE HEARD ON THE FUTURE OF GRIFFITH PARK

Now is the time for you to express your views to City Hall and to tell your elected and appointed officials that you support the Griffith family’s Application to have all of Griffith Park justly declared a City Historic-Cultural Monument.

Alarmed by proposals over the last few years to commercialize Griffith Park by building hotels, restaurants, tramways and numerous parking structures, Col. Griffith J. Griffith’s heirs submitted a 350 page Application which just barely passed its first vote for continued review at a recent meeting of the Cultural Heritage Commission. Approval of the Application by the Commission and then by the City Council would bring Griffith Park the same status now enjoyed by many other parks and treasured Los Angeles locations. While it would not prevent further development, it would help to ensure that historical aspects of the Park are preserved and that the people of Los Angeles have notice and opportunity to be heard on significant developments.

The Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council and over 30 other community organizations have voted to support the Application. Now it is time for each of us to make our individual voices heard. Some City officials and private interests have asserted that the Application be limited to only certain parts of the Park. This would diminish the status of Griffith Park as a whole, and leave parts of the Park unprotected from possibly unwise and unsupervised development (as well as ineligible for historic funding). This despite the facts that expressed concerns about impacting City services appear to be unfounded and that other Los Angeles parks and facilities, including City Hall itself, have thrived after being protected as Historic-Cultural Monuments.

Here is what you need to do NOW.
1. Make your views known by sending letters or e-mails to Councilmember Tom LaBonge and the Cultural Heritage Commission at the addresses below:

Tell them that “I strongly support the designation of the whole of Griffith Park as an Historic Cultural Monument. I hope that you agree and will support it as well.”

Please customize your letter to increase its impact. Please be good enough to send a copy to us at GGPNC [at] GGPNC [dot] org.

2. Attend the next hearing: The Cultural Heritage Commission will be voting on the matter again at their Thursday, October 2nd meeting. It begins about 10am on the 10th floor of City Hall. It is open to the public and your views are welcomed.

I’m in. We’ve got to stop them from chipping away at the park, it’s too much.
And I agree, we do need a bigger call to arms. We need a ‘face of the park’, or a celeb, or both!
I put a link to ggpnc on my blog for what it’s worth.
Thanks for letting us know.